


Cisco Ramon vs. The Common Cold

by DinerGuy



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Cisco is a drama queen, Friendship, Gen, Humor, It may be called the common cold but it also might be the apocalyptic end of all the things, Melodramatic descriptions of mild illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 05:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13023987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinerGuy/pseuds/DinerGuy
Summary: Nobody loved him. That was why he was dying. That and his cold.





	Cisco Ramon vs. The Common Cold

**Author's Note:**

> As many things do, this started as a conversation with a friend and then just kind of took off from there. I had fun with it though. And I got to channel my inner Harry, which is also fun. Hopefully you all have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.
> 
> Also I totally wanted to call this The Death of Cisco Ramon, but I decided I’d probably lose half of my potential readers, so I restrained myself.
> 
> Standard disclaimers apply. Thanks to the usual suspects (i.e., frankie_mcstein and truthtakestime) for reading over my draft and letting me know their thoughts.

Cisco frowned and tossed the remote across the short space in front of him to the coffee table. It slid a few inches before coming to a stop next to one of several empty tissue boxes that were lying scattered across the tabletop. He sighed in frustration. “Why is there never anything good on television when you actually have time to sit in front of it for hours?” he groused. “And I binged all the good Netflix stuff already.”

He sighed at the now-blank television screen, then reached for his phone where it rested on the arm of the sofa. As he did so, his hand accidentally knocked against the glass of juice that he had left just a little too close to the edge of the side table. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, scrambling to catch it.

Unfortunately, he was no speedster, and his feet had somehow become tangled up in his blanket. He was halfway over the side of the couch when the glass hit the floor. Thankfully, his thick rug kept the dish itself from breaking, but all he could do was watch helplessly as the puddle of orange juice quickly soaked into the rug.

Cisco frowned as he regarded the mess that was now spread across the carpet. He seriously considered just leaving it where it was. Was it really worth it? He could always replace his area rug, couldn’t he? Then he glanced around the room and realized how much furniture he was going to have to move if he did have to pull this rug up and put down a new one, and he made a face. He was going to have to clean it up now or have to deal with the whole heavy lifting thing later on. Not to mention that he would probably end up stepping in the sticky mess if he did leave it.

Groaning in annoyance, Cisco pushed himself the rest of the way off the couch and then shuffled toward his kitchen. It took him longer than he would've liked and his head was pounding the whole way, but he finally made it back to his living room with a wet rag in hand. A few minutes later, the whole sticky mess of orange juice was sopped up as well as he was going to get it for the time being.

Glancing back at the kitchen, he made another face. He really didn't want to have to shuffle his way all the way back to the other room, not when his couch was _right there_.

After a moment of regarding the towel in his hand, Cisco just shrugged and stuffed it into his empty glass. It wasn't like he was using the cup anymore.

Cisco let out a heavy sigh and plopped back onto the couch. Absently, he started to reach for the remote on the table, but then he stopped short when he remembered that he had just tossed it there moments before. That made him remember that he had been trying to grab his phone when he had spilled his drink, and he reached for his phone again. This time, there was no juice to get in his way, and he retrieved the device without any further issues.

He tapped at the screen a few times, sniffling as he did, and then put the phone to his ear. The call rang a few times, and Cisco shifted his weight to put his feet up on his coffee table, not caring that he was crushing several used tissues underneath his heels.

_“Hello?”_ the voice came through the line as the other person finally picked up. _“Cisco, is that you? Aren’t you still sick?”_

“Well, yeah, of course I'm still sick,” Cisco replied, making sure to throw in an exaggerated sniffle for good measure—which then made him cough at the uncomfortable tickle that it prickled in his throat. “I think I'm dying, Barry. You gotta come take care of me. I need more juice,” he threw in as an afterthought.

_“Cisco…”_

Just then, there was a crash in the background that interrupted whatever Barry was saying.

Barry sighed. _“Can’t this wait?”_ He sounded much more winded than he had just a moment before.

Cisco blinked, momentarily wondering why his friend sounded so tired all of a sudden. But then another cough prickled in his throat, and he forgot about everything else. “Barry, you gotta come over,” he begged. “Can you bring me some soup?”

_“Cisco, I'm kinda busy right now…”_ Again, there was a pause as Cisco heard a crashing, thundering noise on the other end of the line. _“Can’t you call somebody else? What about Gypsy?”_

“Nah, man, she’s out of reach right now,” Cisco returned. “And this headache is interfering with my ability to vibe.”

At that moment, there was another giant crash on Barry’s end of the call, and then Cisco heard his friend grunt in pain. _“Cisco,”_ Barry panted. _“Cisco, I really don't have time for this right now, man.”_

“But Barry…”

_“Remember the meta we were trying to track down yesterday? Before you went home from the lab sick?”_

“Yeah…?” Cisco sniffled again.

_“Any guesses as to what I'm doing right now?”_

“What…” Cisco trailed off as he realized what his friend meant. “Oh… Oh! Right. Because I put the Bluetooth feature from your phone into your suit… Right.”

_“Yeah…”_ Barry trailed off distractedly. _“Sorry, buddy. Talk to you later.”_

Just as Barry disconnected the call, there was a gigantic roar from his end of the phone, but then the call ended and the line cut off.

Cisco groaned and rubbed his temple. So much for kicking his headache.

Cisco stared at the phone in his hand for a moment, sniffling to himself. Of course the time he decided to call would be the time Barry was busy with the current bad guy of the week… which probably explained why Caitlin had ducked out of his house so quickly earlier. She could've at least told him. Now Cisco felt bad for distracting Barry just then.

But now who was he supposed to call for help? Caitlin had left, Barry was busy…

Cisco pulled up Iris’s number on his phone, but as soon as he pressed the call button, he realized that she would be at the lab helping Barry as well. Cisco’s eyes widened, and he quickly mashed at the screen to end the call. What was he doing? He couldn't call Iris right now! Sure, Barry was in the middle of fighting a meta, but if he found out that Cisco had bothered his girlfriend while the whole fight thing was going on… yeah, that wouldn’t be a good idea. Barry would probably take a break from the fight to run to Cisco’s house and slap him upside the head.

Okay, so that idea was out. And since Joe was either at the lab too or out trying to help Barry and Wally was out of reach, who did that leave for Cisco to call now?

He briefly thought about calling Cecile… she had been nice enough all of the times that he’d met her. And she was a mother. She would understand what he was going through. Her maternal instinct would kick in, and she would agree to help him.

But then he remembered he didn't actually have her phone number. So much for that idea.

So now what? Cisco was really starting to get frustrated with his lack of ideas. He was Cisco Ramon for crying out loud! He was _Vibe_. He could totally do this thing… but then he was suddenly stricken with another bout of coughing, this time accompanied by snorts and sniffles and more coughs from the mucus building up in the back of his throat and oh man he was going to die…

Yep, definitely dying.

When he finally caught his breath, he reached for a clean tissue and blew his nose as hard as he could. Honking a few times, he finally cleared his sinuses out enough that he didn't feel quite as far gone as he had a few moments before. But even still, he was completely out of ideas on getting someone to come help him _not_ die. Which, you know, would actually be a really nice idea right about then.

Cisco flopped back on the couch and reached for his blanket to pull it back up around himself. He was going to die, right here, right now, of the common cold—or common according to Caitlin, but Cisco was pretty sure that this cold was uniquely terrible to his situation. He didn’t care what anyone said to the contrary.

When the others needed him to vibe but he couldn't because he was _dead_ , hopefully they would feel guilty about the whole telling-him-to-man-up thing.

Hopefully.

They could at least act concerned about him, he decided. Nobody loved him. That was why he was dying. That and his cold.

Yep. He was definitely a goner.

But then before Cisco could mope in his misery any longer, a buzzing sound suddenly broke into his thoughts. He could feel his phone’s vibrating ringer going off somewhere on the couch beside him, but he couldn't find it… He had just had it in his hand, but now he was about to miss a phone call because it had slipped down somewhere when he had reached for the blanket.

Of course. Now his friends were going to think he was being petty and not taking their calls because he was mad at them. Which he totally wasn’t. Right now, he felt way too terrible to be that petty.

Finally finding the device, he snatched it up and answered the call without stopping to look at the caller ID. He was just worried about catching the call before it went to voicemail or whichever friend it was gave up.

“Hello?” Cisco answered eagerly. “Barry, is that you?”

_“Oh, hello, sir.”_ This voice didn't sound familiar. It was heavily-accented. _“Hello, this is Steve, and I am calling from Windows Tech Support.”_

Cisco frowned. Great. He was dying, and his last conversation was going to be with a scammer. He didn't have time for this.

The caller took his silence as something else than what it was and pressed on. _“Yes, we have detected a virus on your computer and need to fix it.”_

“Dude, don't even start with me about computers,” Cisco grumbled. “You know what? I work on computers more powerful than you probably could even imagine, so let’s just skip the part where you try to convince me that you’re actually a legitimate caller and that you can tell my computer has a virus. Because, _oh_ buddy, the things I could tell you… Wait. Hello? Hello… Oh. Huh. He hung up.”

Cisco sighed and started to toss his phone to the side again. He might as well just try to take a nap and ignore the feeling of death that still wouldn't leave him. It had felt good to go off on that caller, but now all he could think about was that he was all alone and sick as a dog and most likely going to die soon.

And then his doorbell rang.

Cisco sat up straighter and glanced over the back of the couch at his front door. That was weird. He wasn't expecting anyone, and not enough time had passed so it couldn't be Caitlin or Iris or Joe—even though he had never tried calling the latter of the three. It was possible it was Barry, but Cisco had a feeling it was not.

Maybe he was just hallucinating. He’d heard that could be an indication of impending death.

He blinked as the rapping came again. So he hadn’t imagined it.

Cisco groaned, coughing as his congestion caught in his throat again, and then heaved himself up off of the couch. “I'm coming! I'm coming!” he yelled in the general direction of the door, although it came out sounding more like, ‘Ahm dumming,’ due to his stuffed up nasal passages. Cisco grunted in frustration. _Oh to be able to talk normally again,_ he thought morosely.

The thought that maybe he shouldn't answer the door popped into his mind as he stumbled past his couch. Didn't Joe always say that they shouldn't answer their doors to any visitors they didn't know and weren’t expecting? What if that person on his porch turned out to be some crazy serial killer or new threatening metahuman? What would Cisco do then? Would he be able to get away with the excuse that he’d had no idea that there was an actual bad guy knocking on his door?

But didn't bad guys normally just bust their way inside?

If nothing else, at least this was a polite serial killer.

Then Cisco shook his head. Why should he care if they were polite or not? They were going to kill him anyway. _Sure,_ he told himself, _I stay home from work because I'm sick and end up getting offed by a crazy psycho serial killer rather than just suffering death by the common cold._

Although on second thought, he wasn't sure which would be worse: getting killed by some nutcase or dying of the cold like he was currently doing.

Maybe the nutcase would make it quick, as opposed to the cold.

Cisco sighed and shook the thoughts away and out of his head. He was just being silly. He had a peephole in his door for crying out loud. If nothing else, he could at least see who it was and call for help if needed. He didn't have to open the door and risk someone going all crazy psycho murderer nuts on him. At least if they decided to stay on the other side of the door, then he should be okay.

When he finally made it to the door, he leaned forward to look through the peephole and then blinked in surprise.

He stepped back and frowned. Was that who he thought it was?

He looked again. Sure enough, it was exactly who he thought it was. What in the world was the man on his doorstep doing on his doorstep?

Cisco coughed and then reached out and turned the knob. “What in the worlds are you doing here?”

“Hah. ‘Worlds.’ Very clever, Ramon,” Harry said, shaking his head and shifting the paper bag of… whatever it was that he was holding in his hands. “Are you going to let me in or what? I heard you picked up a virus somewhere.”

“Wha… How’d you find out about that?” Cisco asked in confusion. He was trying to process all of the things, but at the moment, his head was pounding and now another cough was tickling at his throat and he _really_ didn't have time to try to figure all of this out.

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Come on, Ramon. You’ve been calling and texting your friends all day, even while they are trying to, you know, defend the city against metahumans.”

“Hey now! I didn't know that’s what Barry was doing when I called him!” Cisco protested.

“Can I come in or are we just going to stand here all afternoon?” Harry asked, raising an eyebrow as he ignored the younger man’s objections to his previous statement.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, fine. Come in,” Cisco invited, stepping back into the entryway. “Sorry about the mess, but I haven’t really felt like cleaning much lately.”

“So it would seem,” Harry grunted, looking around to take in the state of Cisco’s living room.

Cisco made a face, but Harry continued before he could say anything

“The kitchen is this way, I take it?” Harry asked. He didn't wait for Cisco’s reply before he started across the living room toward a doorway at the other end of the small space. “You really need to take care of this place better, you know,” he said, throwing the comment back over his shoulder as he went.

Making yet another face, Cisco shuffled over to the sofa and plopped down on the cushions with a deep sigh. “Yeah, well usually I'm better about keeping up with housework, even with all of the odd hours I put into working at S.T.A.R. labs, but I’ve been a little bit _preoccupied_ lately.” He coughed loudly in Harry’s direction for good measure. Reaching for one of his throw pillows, he tucked it against his chest and crossed his arms over it.

“Uh huh,” came Harry’s reply from the kitchen. “And why are none of your dishes organized? Come on, Ramon; you’ve got to keep things straight, or you’re going to waste time when you need to find something.”

“Uh, excuse me,” Cisco sat up, slightly offended at the other man’s words. “For one, do I look like a guy who cooks very often to you? And two, it is _my_ house, and I can put things wherever I want. Maybe I _like_ them where they are.”

Harry’s snort could be heard from all of the way across the room. “Well, that explains a lot of it. But efficiency, Ramon! As a scientist, you should appreciate that.”

“Yeah, of course!” Cisco called hoarsely… and then suddenly realized he was engaged in a yelling argument across his living room. He frowned grumpily. Leave it to Harry to show up and start something when Cisco was dying of suffocation from his stupid sinuses. He reached for another tissue and blew his nose, honking a little more loudly than necessary and watching the doorway to the kitchen in hopes that it would get on Harry’s nerves.

And sure enough, it did.

“Do you have to do that?” Harry yelled at him. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to use a tissue _politely_?”

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to do _anything_ politely?” Cisco mumbled under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” Cisco shot back. Then a sudden thought occurred to him and he frowned and sat up a little straighter, his brow wrinkling as he looked over at his kitchen. “Hey, what are you doing in there anyway, Harry?” The banging of what he assumed were his pots and pans was starting to pique his curiosity.

“Making you something to help with this ‘deadly’ cold you seem to have contracted,” Harry returned.

“Hey, I can hear those air quotes!” Cisco complained loudly. “And I do feel like I'm dying, thank you very much. It’s not my fault if you’ve never gotten so sick that _you_ felt like you couldn't breathe.”

Harry reappeared in the doorway long enough to raise a pointed eyebrow in Cisco’s direction. “Oh I have. I just manned up and went about my day anyway. Nothing to be gained from sitting around the house acting like a child about it.” Then he disappeared again before Cisco could make any kind of retort to his face.

From his place on the couch, Cisco crossed his arms and stuck out his lower lip. Sure, he knew _that_ was acting like a child, but he really didn't care. He had more important things to worry about at the moment… like the insult to his manhood that had just registered with Cisco’s thoughts.

“Hey now!” Cisco called out, making sure to sound extra perturbed than he actually was. He might as well make Harry think he was more upset than he was. Maybe it would hammer home the fact of just how under the weather he felt right then.

He didn't feel like trying to be tactful or responsible about anything in life. All he wanted to do was hide under his blankets and sleep for the next… well, forever, really. Or at least until he could actually breathe through his nose without any trouble again.

Then the sounds of more pots and pans banging together drew his attention away from whatever complaint he was about to make. Cisco frowned. “What _are_ you doing?” he demanded. He couldn't decide what he thought was happening based off of the sounds he could hear. There was some clattering of dishes, of what sounded like a spoon in a pot, and the rustle of plastic bags. And then… yep, that was the blender. What in the world was going on?

And more importantly, was Harry going to clean all of that mess up when he was done?

If Harry was even making a mess, which knowing the other man, it was possible that wasn't actually going to be any kind of an issue. The guy’s lab was usually spotless whenever Cisco wandered in, apart from the usual bits and pieces of machinery and whatever equations or problems were scribbled across his work board. But as far as spills and food and what have you, Harry was always impeccable about how neat and clean he kept his workstation. Cisco often had teased him about it, about how real science was messy, but right about now he was realizing he was grateful for that trait of the other man’s because it meant that the apartment kitchen would most likely fare extremely better than if the roles had been reversed.

Not that Harry would ever have let Cisco in through his front door. But a breach could always do the job.

“Oh I'm cooking you up something that I make for Jesse whenever she’s sick,” Harry said proudly. “I mean, I did. You know, before she became a speedster and now she can’t actually get sick anymore. Well, at least not like she used to. Not like us normal humans, like you right now. No, that is yet another positive point of being a speedster, that you have those quick healing powers and so any nasty virus or bug you do happen to catch will be in and out of your system in no time flat and sometimes you will hardly even notice before it is gone.”

“Harry!” Cisco yelled, then coughed at the exertion on his throat. “You’re rambling again,” he added, wincing at the hoarseness of his voice at the words.

“Sorry,” Harry returned, coming out of the kitchen with a steaming mug in one hand and a napkin in the other. “Sorry, I just… you know what, never mind. Here. Drink up. It is guaranteed to get rid of whatever you have.” He made his way over to the sofa and held out the cup in a grand gesture. Carefully, so as not to spill the liquid sloshing around inside of the dish, Harry handed it over to the younger man.

Cisco took the mug gingerly, wincing as the sudden heat warmed his fingers a little bit too quickly, and then peered inside of the cup with a raised eyebrow. The smells that were coming out of it were not exactly appetizing, and whatever ingredients that Harry had used had rendered the contents of the mug a weird brownish-reddish-orange color that Cisco couldn't quite identify.

“What is it?” he asked bluntly, looking back up at Harry’s face.

The other man made a face and gestured with his hand in a circular motion in the air. “What do you mean, what is it? It is a remedy for what ails you, Ramon! Come on; Jesse drinks it all the time—well drank it all the time—and it never killed her.”

“Are you sure?” Cisco still wasn’t convinced by the other man’s theatrics. “Are we sure she wasn't secretly a speedster before and we just didn't realize it?”

Harry crossed his arms and stood back, the look on his face one of completely not being pleased with Cisco’s reaction to whatever it was that he had so painstakingly concocted in Cisco’s kitchen. “You know, Ramon, you're not as grateful as one would think you’d be after all I did for you just now.” He shook his head as if in disapproval at the reaction he had received from Cisco. “If it weren’t for how much I cared about your team, I'd just turn around and leave you where you are for good.”

“Huh, what?” Cisco looked up from where he had been studying the color of the liquid concoction intently. “My team?” He rubbed his face with his free hand. He wasn't following this conversation very well. He blamed the cold getting to his brain.

“Yeah, well,” Harry snorted a laugh, “you don’t think that I just _happened_ to know you were sick at home, do you? And I was on my earth, so it is not like you could've exactly called me and asked for my help—which we all know you probably would never have done anyway—so how else do you think I know? Your team called me, Ramon!” He spread his arms out to either side at that. “They said you needed help because you were sick and none of them could help you like you needed right now because of their current metahuman case.” He shrugged and dropped his hands back to his sides. “And so I said yes, of course, because I can never turn down a request for help from Barry Allen, especially when it comes at the same time as it sounds like he’s in the middle of a pitched battle.

“So I agreed and went to the store and then came right here. Passed through S.T.A.R. Labs, of course, as I came through the portal there. And let me tell you what; they do certainly have their hands full right now.”

“Oh is that so?” Cisco blinked at the sudden onslaught of information.

“Yeah, I think they said something to the effect of,” and here Harry cleared his throat and raised the pitch of his voice, “‘Harry, man, you gotta come help us. Cisco’s sick, and he’s being a little… overeager about needing help.’”

“‘Overeager’?” Cisco repeated with a raised eyebrow.

“Hey, those are his words, not mine. You know Barry,” Harry shrugged.

Cisco chuckled uncertainly. “Yeah, haha, sure. I know Barry all right…”

“Now come on, Ramon!” Harry encouraged. “Stop stalling and drink up! It’ll make you feel better; I promise. Guaranteed.”

Cisco looked askance at the cup he was holding then raised another doubtful look to the other man’s face and then back again. “Uh, haha, no,” he chuckled nervously. “I’m not drinking this.” He tried to hand the mug back, but Harry wouldn’t take it.

“Oh, don't look at me like that,” Harry snorted. “See, I'm not doing this because I actually care that you’re dying. Or that you think you’re dying. Whatever. It doesn't really matter right now… Look, but you are _loud_ when you are overreacting to common human ailments, and I have things to do today, so hopefully this helps. You know, so I can go back to my work, and you can stop telling everyone you’re about to die from a simple cold.”

“‘Simple.’ Hmph.” Frowning, Cisco swirled the liquid around in the mug as he regarded it dubiously. He was still not at all convinced that Harry wasn't pulling a fast one over on him and that this would simply be some terrible-tasting concoction that would do nothing for him except possibly make him sicker than he already was. “Nah… you’re trying to poison me, right?”

Harry sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “At this point, that might be a preferable alternative.”

“Fine,” Cisco finally said. “Fine. You know what? I _will_ drink it.” And here he sniffled and coughed, but he didn't stop long enough for Harry to get any words in edgewise before he continued. “I'm going to man up like everyone keeps telling me to do. Because I'm a man! And I'm going to drink this… and I'm not going to throw it up… and I'm going to hope you’re right and it doesn't kill me and it helps me get over this stupid cold.”

Harry nodded in approval. “Good man.” He crossed his arms and watched as Cisco slowly brought the mug up to his lips.

Cisco realized he wasn't exactly sure how he was going to convince himself of his own words. The closer the weird-smelling and odd-colored steaming liquid got to his face, the more he was absolutely sure he wasn't going to appreciate when that… whatever it was hit his taste buds.

He wrinkled his nose and almost pulled the cup away from his mouth at the last minute, but then he caught sight of Harry out of the corner of his eye and realized he’d already committed himself to doing this. Maybe he had overcommitted, but he wasn't about to let some nasty smell keep him from carrying out what he had said he was going to do. The last thing he wanted was for Harry to be able to constantly remind him that he couldn't do anything more than a girl had done… and that as a matter of fact, that girl had done more than Cisco because _she_ drank the stuff when her dad made it, but Cisco couldn't bring himself to do so.

Granted, Jesse had grown up with this torture device of her father’s, and this was the first time that Cisco was ever laying eyes on or smelling said torture device. But still. There was no way that Cisco was about to be outdone by a girl, growing up with it or not.

He braced himself for whatever was about to hit his taste buds and then tilted the mug back into his mouth in one go. It was like jumping in a swimming pool when the water is freezing cold or ripping a bandage off of your knee. You just do it all in one go and give your body no time to think about or process what is happening. By the time the shock wears off and your reflexes actually respond to the unpleasant experience, it’s already over and done with.

That was Cisco’s logic with the cup of whatever natural remedy it was that Harry had handed him, and it almost worked, except for the fact that the liquid was much, _much_ thicker than he had imagined it would be. That meant that it took much longer than he’d expected for it to track across his tongue and down his throat, and a moment later, he had to come up for air, choking and coughing.

It burned. Ohhhhh, it burned.

It was like nothing he had ever experienced before. It was hot and fiery and spicy and he wasn't sure if he was crying or just sweating out of his eyeballs but it was absolutely terrible and where had all of his air gone all of a sudden oh man he was most definitely about to die…

“Ramon!” Harry’s voice cut into his frantic thoughts. “Breathe, Ramon, breathe. Are you okay?” The other man was thumping him on the back as he spluttered and coughed.

But Cisco was struggling too much for breath to care at the moment. “You… you… you…” He spluttered, trying to regain his composure after just trying to glug the whole contents of his mug down in one long go. Then he took a long, shuddering, deep breath and then turned his glare on Harry. “You _are_ trying to kill me!”

“Oh for… Ramon!” Harry shot back, straightening up with a look on his face that said he wasn't sure why he had even bothered to be concerned about the younger man in the first place. “Not everything is about you, you know.” He rolled his eyes. “Stop being such a child and drink the rest of it.”

Cisco couldn’t resist. He frowned and stuck out his tongue in response.

“Yeah, see, that right there.” Harry rolled his eyes heavily. He crossed his arms and shifted his weight to his other foot. “I'm not leaving this spot until you do,” he added, raising an eyebrow to underscore his point.

“Fine, fine, fine,” Cisco groused, but he did as he had been told and raised the mug back to his mouth, although he shot his best death glare over at Harry before he lifted the cup enough that it obscured his vision of the other man.

It was even worse than he remembered. It was thick and slightly clumpy and so spicy that it burned at his mouth and throat as it went down. Cisco was fairly certain that he was never going to take just being sick and stuffy for granted again. He might’ve not been able to breathe, but at least his trachea hadn't felt like it was _being incinerated_ , thank you very much.

He almost choked on the drink several times, but when he finally drained the last drops of the sludge, he lurched forward and set it down on the coffee table with a final _thunk_ and then looked back over at Harry, trying as hard as possible to convey every ounce of his disgust through his expression.

Frowning, Cisco tried to come up with something angry and sarcastic to say about the stupid drink that had just tried to murder him. The bitter aftertaste that was stuck at the back of his throat that was almost worse than the drink itself had actually been. He searched for the words to say, even as he swallowed frantically to try to clear the rest of the residue of the deadly concoction that Harry had just made him drink…

…but then he stopped.

The smirk on Harry’s face said that the other man knew exactly what was happening, and Cisco almost wanted to be mad. Almost. Except he couldn't bring himself to be because he was focusing on the part where he _could actually breathe through his nose again_.

He had almost forgotten how fantastic that sensation was. But yes, he could indeed. He took another breath and couldn't hold back his grin of excitement.

“Told you so,” Harry said as he gingerly took the used mug from Cisco, pinching it between two fingers, and then turned back for the kitchen. With Harry’s back to him, Cisco couldn't see the other man’s facial expression, but if he had been able to, he would have seen the smile playing at the corners of Harry’s mouth as he went.

Not that Cisco particularly cared. He was more preoccupied with the fact that he could finally breathe again. And his headache was gone, which meant he could finally use his powers again.

He needed to get to the lab! It was high time Vibe joined the fray.


End file.
